


Bethlehem Down

by orphan_account



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: But like probably not in a good way, Discussion of Cannibalism, Discussion of Death and Killing, Falling In Love, M/M, Self Acceptance, The Sick and Twisted Love of Will and Hannibal, i don't even know why i wrote this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:48:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12938532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hannibal didn’t feel love. Not like anyone else did.This is what Will Graham figures out first.





	Bethlehem Down

**Author's Note:**

> Will figures Hannibal out during the three years of Hannibal's captivity. It changes a lot of things, and nothing at all.
> 
> I don't know why I wrote this. Really, really don't.

Hannibal didn’t feel love. Not like anyone else did.

 

This is what Will Graham figures out first.

He’s in bed, and Molly’s to the left of him, snoring and cuddling against her pillow. Will thinks he loves her during the day. During the day, he considers proposing to her. Considers becoming a father to Wally, who is so smart and so cautious and such a sweet kid. He thinks about adopting dogs and living in a cabin and teaching Wally how to fish, during the day.

 

But the deep, black stretches of the late night are reserved for Hannibal.

Will can’t sleep, during the ugliest, darkest parts of the night. He imagines a shadow standing outside the room, or inside the room. Lounging near the bed. He imagines getting his throat cut, his head scalped. He imagines Alana and Margot dying. He imagines Molly’s and Walter’s deaths now, too. 

So he lays awake, thinking.

It’s like Hannibal has filled every shadow on in Will’s mind. He creeps up on Will slowly, but inevitably, Will thinks about Hannibal. He wonders constantly, about everything.

 

Hannibal didn’t feel love, like everyone else did.

 

Maybe he did, once. Mischa. Will wonders if Hannibal felt too much for Mischa. Treasured her too much, cared for her too much. Will wonders if it scared Hannibal. If Hannibal had given Mischa too much of himself, and he’d decided to take it back. In the worst way that he could.

Will wonders if Hannibal did have a pathology, after all--Hannibal had a god complex a mile wide. Will thinks that Hannibal fancied himself a god. A cruel, whimsical one.  _ Ares and Hades and Lucifer all at once, _ Will thinks.

And Hannibal couldn’t allow himself to love, to hate. Only to scorn and rebuff. To play with others from a distance, never edging closer. Just like God, Hannibal had his favorite children. Bedelia, Abigail. Maybe even Jack, at one point, just for kicks. Even Will himself.

But that didn’t explain it. It didn’t explain everything.

It didn’t explain why Hannibal had left Will his broken heart. It didn’t explain why Hannibal had given himself up, just so that he could stay a presence in Will’s life. It didn’t explain--

 

Will cuts off that train of thought quickly. He knows where it’s going, and he decides that he doesn’t want an answer.

Instead, he turns on his side, and counts Molly’s breaths as she sleeps.

 

***

Hannibal sends Will letters sporadically.

Will supposes that it’s meant to keep Will on his toes. Make him comfortable in his life before jerking him out of it again, and all that. Will never responds, because Hannibal doesn’t expect him to respond. Doesn’t want him to respond. Will knows enough now--he knows that he can’t fight against Hannibal’s design.

 

Two weeks after Will swallowed down any forbidden thoughts about Hannibal and falling in love, Will gets a letter from Hannibal.

Molly’s brought in the mail, and she’s drinking hot cocoa and reading a book as Will and Walter come in from fishing. Will kicks off his boots and helps Walter out of his jacket, and when he turns around, a letter from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane is staring up at him.

Will feels his legs get a little weak, and he sits down at the kitchen table. He always reacts the same. Hannibal still has the same potent effect on Will that he did nearly two years ago, when Will decided to chase Hannibal down all the way in Europe.

“Will?” Walter asks. “Are you okay?”

 

He looks up, and finds Walter and Molly staring at him. Will smiles, and it feels tight on his face. “Yeah,” he says. “Just...an old acquaintance got in contact. Reminds me of bad memories.”

Walter nods. He’s only nine (nearly ten, Will should buy him a gift for his birthday soon), but he’s much too understanding. In a different world, Will would have been proud if Walter was his biological son.

Molly looks at him, and he holds up the envelope for her to read. He sees her eyes tighten and her lips pull together. She only knows the bare bones of the story, but that’s enough for her to realize Will’s need to be alone right now.

“Hey, Wally,” she says, “Wanna go to the store and get more hot chocolate with me?”

Wally frowns, but nods, and Molly hurries to get their coats and boots back on. Before leaving, she drops a kiss on Will’s head, and it makes his shoulders unfurl a little bit. He smiles at her softly, and watches them leave the house.

 

Will waits until he can’t hear the car anymore, and then he starts a fire in the fireplace. He stokes it until it’s roaring, until he’s sweating through his clothes. Then, and only then, does he open the envelope.

It’s beautiful, because of course it’s beautiful. Hannibal’s letters are always beautiful. Written in swooping, curling calligraphy, with impressive language and swirling rhetoric that slips and slides like water, settling down in the dark recesses of Will’s brain.

 

_ I do wish that you and I could see each other again. _

He imagines it coming from Hannibal’s snakelike mouth, dripping with venom and slithering its way down Will’s ears. 

 

_ It seems as though we still need to speak about certain issues. Alana has told me about a new woman you are seeing. She sounds lovely. Alana mentioned her affinity for dogs, as well as a stepson. She sounds like the perfect counterpart for you. Will. _

_ Yet, I cannot help but wonder if she knows about Palermo; if she would see the skull painted on the tile as beautiful, or as somewhat morbid. Please consider this carefully; I find that a question such as this often carries more importance than it should. _

 

_ I am happy that you have found such a warm and comfortable place in the world, Will. I would advise that you cling to it as tightly as possible. Reality has a habit of sweeping away the warmth and comfort. _

_ If you should have reason to need me, you know where I am. _

 

_ Hannibal _

 

Will rips up the letter and throws it into the fire. He feels a stab of blunt satisfaction, watching the paper and the careful calligraphy catch flame and turn to ash.

Will always hates Hannibal’s letters. It always feels like the perfect amount of sense and bullshit, and they get so wrapped around each other that it’s hard to prise them apart. Hard to distinguish fact from fiction. From what can be gleaned from the letters, to what Hannibal wants Will to think.

 

The problem with Hannibal Lecter, Will thinks, is that Hannibal is not a god.

That seems rather inconvenient to Hannibal. A minor annoyance that Hannibal has to live with. An indignity, really. But he’s so otherworldly, so vastly different than others, that he gives the appearance of godliness.

Will is sure that Hannibal is fallible. But he’ll never know when Hannibal is, because Hannibal’s facade is so secure. Will has never known who had the upper hand in their relationship, and because of this confusion, it was, and is, always Hannibal.

Will has a shock of insight run through him, as he watches the letter burn up in the fireplace. The only way to beat Hannibal is to let him go. The only way to live Hannibal-free, is to forget about Hannibal. Hannibal’s words couldn’t dig into Will’s skull, if Will didn’t listen to them.

It feels like a hollow victory.

Then again, most everything felt hollow without Hannibal.

 

***

 

Will burns Hannibal’s next letter without reading it.

 

He tells himself that he should feel better. He tries to fool himself into getting a burst of happiness, a spark of satisfaction.

 

The only thing he feels is a stab of something awful and painful, and he hates himself all the more for it.


End file.
